I don’t know about you, but when I reflect on my life I find it impossibly full. Family. Work. Friends. Reading. Learning. Thinking. Writing. Project. DIY. Exercise. Chores. Shopping. Meditation. Fun. Relaxing. I only just remembered fun and relaxation and I’m sure I’m missing other major items from this list.

Not the same as life

And that’s a problem. When, not if, new things are forcibly wedged in then other stuff always gets squeezed or squeezed out. And life is not like carbon. Putting it under pressure does not create diamonds. I know from painful past experience that relationships don’t harden but disintegrate when placed under excess pressure, and for that matter nothing else gets better either. Which is why I’m excited by an almost magical solution to the problem of an over-full life, one that has emerged accidentally in 2014Q4 from a long running and almost pathologically frenetic attempt to organise, plan and goal set my life.

It’s funny. He’s always been there, but it’s only over the last couple of years that I’ve consciously heard him, realized he exists. It’s the little voice, sitting on my shoulder, assessing and judging. Assessing and judging you. Assessing and judging me.

When Katie and I started going out, and for a long time afterwards, we lived apart. At first that just made sense (you don’t move in with someone three days after meeting them) and later it was a necessity, while I was working in London and she was finishing her doctorate in Oxford. Overall, long distance and living apart is rubbish, but it did mean that we managed to avoid all the thorny financial decisions that being in a relationship normally brings for much longer than you’d expect.

How can I be a good parent? Who should I be to be a good parent? What does it even mean to be a good parent? For the last 8 months especially, these are all questions I’ve been thinking about a lot. And, with any luck, in the coming years, I might unearth some answers.

Of course, it’s relatively easy to just think about it. Actually writing it down is much harder, and posting it on the internet for all to see is even worse. After all, I could be wrong. Or – infinitely worse – I might fail to live up to the standards I set myself. But as Cialdani shows, publicly putting a stake in the ground only increases the odds I will succeed. And I’d rather have better chances than unembarrassing failure. On that note…

Everyone has a Golden Orb, a Golden Orb of Happy High Confidence. Everyone. You have one, you just have to find it, and once you have found it then it will be there for you whenever you want it or need it. Here is one way you can find it.